Bibi and Charlie

On Monday Charlie Rose interviewed Bibi Netanyahu. I highly recommend it as a must-see. 

Dip the Apple into . . . Sweetener of Choice

Since childhood, I have been cursed with an abnormal and to some, heretical dislike. 

I don't like honey.  

This made things complicated in grade school, as classmates would gasp and morahs would swoon as I politely declined to partake of bee vomit (technically, that's what honey is). I spend my High Holy Days a lonely outsider, watching others ritualistically dip and chuckle and lick fingertips. 

But this year, it came to me; an alternate to honey, a way to reclaim my reputation as a participant of timeless Jewish tradition. 

I shall dip my apple . . . in maple syrup. 

Not the Aunt Jemimah watered-down stuff; Grade A, Costco issue, pristine maple syrup. 

Whatever sweetener you enjoy, whether it be honey, evaporated cane juice, agave, or blackstrap molasses, I wish to all and sundry, A Sweet Year.

Love Thy Chicken

The Alliance to End Chicken as Kapparos has my backing! Check out their website for fun facts how chickens are tortured during kapparos.

To truly invoke God's compassion, we must be compassionate to His creations. Giving tzedakah instead will be of more benefit to the poor and will definitely score points with the Man upstairs.

Red Soles . . . For Men?

The other Shabbos a young feller trotted by. His retreating figure was bestowing tantalizing flashes of red - I do not know if his shoes were authentic Louboutin or not, but his soles were the right color. Looked new, too. 

Louboutin recently lost in court for sole (no pun intended) rights to the red sole, so he may have been wearing another brand. 

But, in any case, are there any females out there who feel zealously protective of the red sole?

I'm Pathetic . . . By Gentile Standards

There was an assumed understanding between myself and my non-Jewish or irreligious associates: obviously, observant Jews are insane to get married while still in their 20s. 

However, I am noticing a shift in mentality. 

"How can you tell if a Jewish guy is married?"

"Um, well, some wear a ring, but many don't, so you can't tell."

"Oh. I saw a guy on the train who looked nice and I thought of him for you." 

And: 

"Why don't you go to this . . . synagogue, it's called? Meet a nice boy?"

Or: 

"I'm interviewing one of your people today. Should I ask if he's single?" 

Then: 

"I work by this family and they have a very nice boy." (Translated from Czech; she's my sister's cleaning woman). 

Followed by: 

"My boyfriend isn't religious" (she's a magnificent Irish blonde) "but there's this rabbi-in-training friend of his that's very nice."

I am well aware what my neighbors and relatives think of me ("Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Nebach.") But I expected better from my out-of-the-loop non-Jewish buddies, who would equate marriage with bondage and should be avoided until 39 when the biological clock is ticking.

There's one fantasy shot to hell.  

Let's Get Real. Really.

Politicians are fighting over whose the most "authentic." And we're supposed to take them seriously. 

In Stephanie Rosenbloom's article, they wouldn't seem to be the only ones.

How many of us insist that we are being "true to ourselves"? I know Disney made a big thing about this, but who are we kidding? Who enters society without any constraints at all about their internal selves, except b'kiso, b'kaaso, b'koso?

“The best way to sell yourself is to not appear to be selling yourself,” Professor Pooley said. Politicians do it. Celebrities do it. And you, reader, do it every time you tap out a status update on Twitter, Facebook, Google+.

Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that. After all, scholars say people have always maintained multiple selves: there’s the version that you present to your family, the you that you are with your colleagues, the you that you are with members of your poker club. They are all, in some way, “you.” It’s what the sociologist Erving Goffman was referring to in the late 1950s when he likened all human interaction to theatrical performance. 

Life online is no different. As one of Professor Baron’s students told her: Facebook is “me on my best day.”

I like this end point: 

Take Nicki Minaj, the hip-hop singer who has purposefully adopted theatrical alter egos with names like Roman Zolanski and Nicki Teresa.

“I’m definitely playing a role,” Ms. Minaj explained in BlackBook magazine. “They don’t pay to see me roll out of bed with crust in my eyes, and say, ‘Hey guys, this is me, authentic.’ They pay for a show.”

Just because I put on a show doesn't mean that's not "me." By "show," in my case, I mean those times I pretend to be in a good mood, say, when going through a particularly painful date. The fact that I can act like that is also part of who I am. 

So if we are all authentic, that means no one is authentic. Sort of like how if everybody is special, nobody is special.   

I'm Steaming

When Dr. Phil first got his own show, enough people were gasping  at his wife's, Robin's, skin, to the point that she was given a segment to detail her skin regimen.

She advocating using a facial sauna as the way to keep her skin looking young, but it is also beneficial to all skin types. The steam opens up pores, allowing treatment to penetrate deeper, cleaning out gook (yes, "gook" is a technical term.) 

The Conair Facial Sauna Systems with Timer comes with another cone for steaming the sinuses, and also a rotating brush for facial cleansing, which is similar to the one I spent a fortune on. The timer feature is also convenient, forcing one to keep the face in there. 

Once a week I make time and give my pores a good steam. If my skin is not behaving I set the timer for longer.

If there are blemishes lurking under the skin, the steam helps to bring them to the surface, speeding up the healing process. I have blackheads on my nose, and with the use of a blemish extractor I can press out excess sebum, making the nose pores look smaller. This should be done immediately after steaming - the pores start to close up pretty fast.

Don't get too violent or there will be scarring. The smaller circle is best for clogged pores, the larger loop for blemishes. Press and hope for the best, but don't hurt the skin.

Addictive Personalities

"Cocaine reconnected my mind to my body, and I felt tremendously alive, hypersexual and hopeful once again," he wrote. "At least I had a new God to believe in, even if I knew all along this was a false God, a deceitful God, one who always promised misery and defeat. So, I choose this God of intense extremes over the monotony of everyday life." - A Failure of Happiness by Charles Lyons

I like monotony. It's safe, boring, and uneventful. I don't mind spending a day pottering about the house if there is nothing else to do. I never crave vacations for "a change of scene." I have the same lunch every day and consume it happily. I live my life by predictable routine, and I am content to do so.

I always wondered about addictive personalities. Why does one keep drinking or keep getting high or keep gambling if they know that crash is going to come, if they know they'll hit rock bottom? 

I hypothesized that for these individuals, they don't care what the consequences of the "rush" will be. They just want to feel that boost, even though it will bring them crashing right back down. 

For someone like me—the last time I had a milkshake I was three and had thrown up—I can't fathom it. Negative reinforcement can work its magic on me in no time at all.

One can, of course, make comparisons to the yetzer hara, but in these cases the retribution comes much swifter, meaning one can see what went wrong and how to avoid it. But they don't. 

The story cited above details a brilliant student's fall from reachable brilliance to an early, wasted death. It is a shame how so many, full of glittering potential and intellect, are sucked into the Dark. 

Get Thee A Wife

I will admit, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers may not be the most dazzling musical out there. However, that is not the film's fault; apparently, MGM would not give the director a large enough budget, deciding to focus their finances on Brigadoon (I find Brides to be much more appealing than Brigadoon. So much for budgets).

Stanley Donen, the director, managed to stretch every possible dollar and fashioned a film that got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. He assembled a highly-talented cast of acrobats and dancers; one of the "brothers" is a ballet dancer. 

The songs are not the catchiest, especially the ones sung by the women (I still fast-forward through those) but the premise is entertaining, along with my fan-tendencies for Howard Keel. 

The Barn Raising is one of the most captivating dance sequences in musical history. 

Even if MGM had coughed up more budget, I don't think it could have been any more show-stopping.

Be Still

I remember as a kid in elementary school how everyone would try to "out-shuckle" the other. The simple frontwards rock? Amateur stuff. To prove true devoutness, the side to side method is preferred, twirling the toes of the front foot from side to side on the lean back, while rotating the rear ankle on the lean forward.

Of course, the concentration into getting these moves right rendered prayer pretty much worthless.

A valid alternative to shuckling is to stand completely still, like a soldier standing at attention in front of the king.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, zatzal, one of the foremost halachic authorities of our generation, was known to stand stock still during the silent prayer. He explained that, while living in Russia, he was once arrested for teaching Torah. One form of torture he experienced during his imprisonment was being forced to stand completely still facing a wall. The threat was that if he were to move he would be shot. It was on one of these occasions that Rabbi Feinstein was struck with the realization that if he could stand with such intense concentration for the sake of his captors, then he should afford at least the same respect when standing in front of Hashem.

Deciding whether to 'shuckle' or stand still depends on which one helps you concentrate better. In any case, a person shouldn't move his body or contort his face in any way that will make him look weird. ohr.edu, "Shakesprayer"

The beefeaters manage to do it, and in that hat too.

"How is he to say it? R. Hisda said: Standing still"—Talmud Bavli, Brachos 30a (in reference to Tefilas HaDerech)
 
A certain Rav (name cannot be recalled) visited my shul for a Shabbos. My father came home in awe, that throughout the entire davening, this man stood perfectly still, ramrod straight. 

I've tried to take that behavior to heart.  It took concentration the first few times, but I've halted my shuckeling. I only do so during chazaras hashatz, when I am not davening. 

I practice standing perfectly still while waiting for the train or a light at a crosswalk. Still = Disciplined. That is an image I want to convey.

I am loath to quote Oprah, but this one is a keeper: 

Stand still and listen to the whispers.  

I think her point was that when one is still, one is focused, one is thinking clearly, and then the answers just come.  

Although I end up shuckling like mad on Yomim Noraim. Standing all that time is murder on my feet, and shuckling redistributes the weight.